


Each Moment Listening for the Voice

by jesterlady



Series: Post Roswell [3]
Category: Roswell (TV 1999)
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien/Human Relationships, Aliens, Dreamsharing, F/M, Gen, Light Angst, One Shot, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 03, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 09:08:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18568264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: One day her daughter disappeared and Amy learned the truth.  Aliens were real, her daughter had been dating an alien, and now they were all on the run from the government.





	Each Moment Listening for the Voice

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell. The title is by CH Spurgeon.
> 
> A/N: I'm not sure where this came from other than thinking Amy deserved more resolution than the show gave her and wanting to explore her feelings about Michael once she knew the truth.

Amy DeLuca had lived in Roswell, New Mexico her entire life. She’d gone to school and knew most of the people and worked with them. She’d made all of her bad decisions there and there were a lot of them. She was not a patient person and she was impulsive and prone to making emotional decisions. Her greatest mistake had resulted in her greatest joy, but she knew she’d done nothing to deserve that. She tried her best though and she made a living the only way she knew how, by profiting off of Roswell’s only redeeming quality, being the alien capital of the world.

None of it was real though, none of it was dangerous. It was harmless tourism and wacky conspiracy theories. That is until one day her daughter disappeared and then her friends brought her a journal written by their daughter and Amy learned the truth. Aliens were real, her daughter had been dating an alien, and now they were all on the run from the government.

It sounded like a bad sci-fi movie.

She wasn’t about to believe them, but the evidence presented was confirmed by her own memories and then by the fact that she had one person she could go to for the truth. After spending a few days in agony, trying to figure out what to do, Amy found herself angry beyond reason and that is when she went to Jim Valenti.

When she knocked on the door, he opened it with an expectant air and that made her even angrier.

“Amy,” he said. “Come on in.”

“Don’t do that,” she snapped, brushing past him. “How could you? My own daughter! You are going to tell me everything you know, everything!”

“I’ll tell you anything you want,” he replied, shutting the door and facing her steadily. “But I can’t tell you where she is. I don’t know. For their safety and ours, I don’t know.”

She wanted to slap him, but she had just enough awareness to see the pain lines on his face and forced herself to remember that his son was among those missing, among those on the run.

“I need to know, Jim,” she said quietly. “I need to know what she’s gotten herself into and how, how I can help her.”

“Then we need to go outside,” he said, gesturing. “For privacy.” They walked outside to his truck which he said he’d swept for bugs and he pulled down the tailgate. “It’s a long story,” he said, sitting down.

At first she didn’t sit, but eventually she realized it was a very long story, spanning years and galaxies, and she sat down, though she twisted her hands deep into her pockets to keep from jumping back up again.

He told her about the crash and about how Michael, Isabel, and Max had grown up, about Max saving Liz, about how Maria and Alex had found out, about how they had all mistrusted him, but how Max had been kidnapped and tortured and after being saved, saved Kyle, about Tess, the truth about Alex’s death and Max and Liz’s crime spree, about why he’d been removed as Sheriff, about this other planet and its wars, about how they’d chosen to stay on earth, about Max’s baby, about how Max had saved his own life, and about how they’d had to run because the truth was finally known. He told her everything Liz had already written but this time she was hearing it from a person, from someone who was there, and the truth sank deep down in her bones like grief.

They were both crying by the end and while she still wanted to hit him, she let him hold her instead.

“Will we ever see them again?” she finally gasped out, once she’d cried all of her tears.

“For their sake, I hope not,” he said tightly.

His words stabbed her and she found herself unable to stand being there for another second even though it was now very late.

“I have to go,” she said abruptly, getting up.

He nodded in understanding.

“I know what you’re going through, Amy,” he said. “If you need to talk, I’m here.”

“No,” she said sharply, “because you had a choice and you let them go. No one bothered to ask me. I never got to say goodbye to my own daughter!”

“I know,” he said and she felt bad because she could see this was hard on him and the things he’d told her had been evidence enough of how much he cared about all of those kids, the humans and the aliens.

“But thank you,” she said, and then left. 

She’d be back, she’d hold onto him like a lifeline, and maybe he could do the same with her. Maybe they could finally build the life together she’d sometimes dreamed about. But right now, right now she needed to figure out how she felt on her own.

The next few days were a blur and she went through the motions of living. Jim had warned her and the Evans’ and the Parkers that they might get inquiries about where their offspring had gone. She was worried about that. It was true the kids were all eighteen now and they told the nosy residents of Roswell that they had all gone to college or moved for work or anything else that seemed reasonable, but that wouldn’t work if the government attempted anything else. 

There would always be rumors, especially after what had happened at the graduation, but for the most part the town settled down. They were rather used to hoaxes and conspiracy theories after all.

For whatever reason, other than a cursory interrogation in which Amy was simply honest and said she had no idea where her daughter was, the government left them all alone. The kids were clearly gone and had no intention of coming back. Amy got the feeling she was being watched more often than not after that and she imagined Roswell was being guarded against their return. She resented that, but she had no idea what to do about it. They burned the evidence as Liz had requested and Amy couldn’t stop feeling like she was somehow burying her daughter when they did it. They spent the night, parents coping without children, telling stories and being brave together. Amy hated every second of it. They didn’t talk about the kids anywhere the government could have planted bugs and they avoided personal details even when they were outside and alone. It was a lonely group to belong to.

As the days passed Amy grew more resentful, more distrustful, and more anxious. She didn’t know what to do with this information, with the fact that aliens existed and her daughter was in love with one. With Michael.

Somehow she found herself thinking about him more than anyone, even Maria sometimes. Thinking if only he hadn’t been involved in her life, if only Amy had stopped them from being together. He’d been a clear warning sign even without being an alien and she’d let her daughter date him.

If only she could have stopped it, Maria might be home and safe.

So she thought about him, about every interaction she’d ever had with him. What had stopped her from running him off? A desire to be the cool mom? A desire to not alienate Maria? Or was it something about him? Could he have done some kind of weird alien thing? She didn’t think so, at least that wasn’t part of the story she’d heard, but she didn’t know, really know, what he was capable of. 

She could recall the first time they’d met and it hadn’t been a great first meeting. He’d mocked her business and at the time she’d just thought he was another one of those people who thought anyone who wanted to be a part of the alien culture of Roswell was stupid. But now…well, if she looked at it from his point of view, everything she did was likely hugely offensive to him and to everything he knew about himself.

She could understand that, yet, he had voluntarily saved her business even with its kitschy offensive alien message. For money? Maybe. For Maria, well, probably. 

Of course the next time she’d really met Michael, not just seen him in passing, he’d been sleeping in her daughter’s bed and she had not been pleased. She didn’t regret reacting as she had at all, she’d have done the same for anyone, alien or not. She believed Maria when she said that nothing had happened between them, but the very idea of the two of them being so close, it was terrifying as a mother. Now she truly understood what Michael had been running from that night and she also understood what he was capable of considering his alien powers. So…so there was that. He could’ve dealt with his problem a different way, but instead he’d chosen her daughter. Amy didn’t know what to think about that.

Everything had been so off and on between them , Amy still didn’t understand that though from what Jim said there were a lot of alien crises that she’d been completely unaware of and one of those had resulted in that little trip out of town that had caused Amy to nearly spiral out of control. She remembered crouching in her living room, clutching Liz’s phone so hard her knuckles were white, and telling Michael in no uncertain terms what she’d do to him if he touched her daughter. He hadn’t done anything and from what Jim said, he’d actually gotten shot saving the world on that trip. Amy had been worried about teen pregnancy and bail money and Michael had actually been saving the world. That was almost worse. Because saving the world was dangerous. It apparently involved strange alien parasites and bullets and so many other things that sometimes made Amy wake with a gasp in the middle of the night.

Of course, then Alex had been killed and apparently murdered and Amy still didn’t want to deal with that. What she could think about was how Michael had taken care of both her and Maria in the aftermath, staying at their house, making them food, helping Maria through the grief. Amy had started to look at him differently at the time and she vividly remembered sitting with hot buttered rum and knowing that this poor kid had given her the only useful skill he’d ever been taught and she’d told him he was always welcome in her house. Would she still have said it if she’d known he was an alien and that the path would lead here? Maybe not. 

She’d seen something in him at the time, a desire to be better, and a true love for Maria. It had helped ease her fears over their relationship and it’s probably what made her advise him the way she did when he was clearly asking her if being with Maria was best considering he might not always be around. At the time she’d thought it had been funny they were discussing it using the metaphor of garbage disposals, but now she knew he’d been talking about leaving the planet on a spaceship. How many other conversations over the years had flown over her head? Could she really trust her past interactions with anyone?

Apparently she’d even had her memory erased by Tess and Amy didn’t even want to think about the violation of that, especially now that she knew the truth about what else Tess had done. Tess was the real reason they’d run anyway, returning in her ship and setting off a panicked response in the military base. The whole thing was such a mess; Amy didn’t have any kind of way to deal with that so she went back to thinking about Michael.

Everything had just been so normal after their garbage disposal talk and his apparent decision to give up everything alien to stay with her daughter. Amy hadn’t known that at the time, of course, but she’d seen changes in him and she knew one should appreciate a man who stayed. She’d seen him get an extra job and try harder at school and he spent more time with Maria and then Maria had suddenly broken everything off before her impromptu record deal and time in New York and refused to talk about it whenever Amy tried to ask. The few times Amy had seen Michael after that he’d clearly been depressed and upset and didn’t want to interact. She’d felt bad for him but let him be and the next thing she knew, he’d absconded with her daughter right after her high school graduation and now…now she had no idea about where either of them was and it was eating her alive.

Who was Michael Guerin? Was he just the troubled and struggling to change young man she’d grown rather fond of? Or did he intend some harm to the human race, to her daughter? What was he doing out there somewhere? What made Maria choose him over her own mother and the life she could have had? 

Amy didn’t sleep well now but tonight she was tired and knew she would sleep eventually. Oddly enough she found herself making hot buttered rum while she bitterly wondered where her daughter was. Amy prayed she was safe. 

When she slept she found herself in the high school auditorium, the last place she’d seen Maria. She’d been so proud and so excited and a little bit sad. She knew she was dreaming now, the place was empty, darker without the blinding light that Michael had apparently used to rescue Max from snipers on that fateful day.

Amy sat on the stage and stared at the empty seats. Gradually she noticed Isabel Evans was sitting in the audience in the far back, the only person there. Amy frowned, unsure why she’d be dreaming about her, when all of a sudden Michael was there as well, standing in front of her.

“Hey, Mrs. Deluca,” he said and he kept his distance from her.

“Michael?” she asked, unsure of what was happening.

He looked different than when she’d seen him last. His hair was cut and she wondered if it was a product of her mental state or if somewhere Maria had finally won the battle over his hairstyle choices. 

“Yeah,” he said. “You’re dreaming right now.”

“Okay,” she said, she’d already known that.

“But I am really here,” he said. He gestured over his shoulder at Isabel. “Isabel can link people in their dreams.”

Amy tried to grasp the concept of that before vaguely remembering Jim saying something about dreamwalking, but all that paled when the reality of her situation brought to mind one stark question.

“Then where is she?” Amy asked, standing up. “Where’s Maria?”

“She’s safe,” Michael said. “We’re all safe.”

“Where is she, Michael?” Amy demanded again. “I don’t give a damn about the rest of it, where is she!”

He looked nervously at Isabel and then back at Amy.

“Look, this is really difficult to do, even for us. Maybe someday Maria can come, maybe if we’re closer, but for now…it’s just me.”

“Why can’t she come?” Amy asked, sinking down again, feeling despair instead of that bolstering anger.

“She wanted to but you’ll have to settle for me. She asked me to tell you she’s safe and she loves you,” Michael said. “We weren’t even sure this would work, but we wanted to try.”

“Why would you care about that?” Amy asked dully.

Michael looked like he desperately wanted to be anywhere but where he was. That was what convinced Amy he was really there. Maybe it was also evidence he was really doing this on Maria’s behalf.

“Look, I, uh, I really care about Maria. I’m sorry about all of this, okay? It, it was never my intention to…take her away from you.”

“But you did,” Amy snapped.

“Yeah,” he said, looking irritated. “Yeah, that was her choice. Okay, for years I tried to push her away because I knew my life would always be too dangerous or that I would have to leave, but she wouldn’t let me. She just kept worming her way back in.”

“That’s Maria,” Amy said, somehow relieved to know that hadn’t changed.

“Yeah, it is,” he said, and his face looked…different.

Maybe it was because it was a dream, but he looked softer somehow, more at peace.

“Is she happy?” Amy asked, desperate for news, even from him.

“It’s not like we don’t still fight,” he said wryly, “but, yeah, I think so. We’re all…it’s good to be together and to know…to know we have each other and that we can do…do good out there in the world.”

“How?” Amy asked, feeling herself lulled by his words.

“Well, we got a fortuneteller and a bunch of bored teenagers with super powers,” he said, shrugging. “It’s…liberating.”

“But still dangerous?” Amy questioned.

He leaned back on the stage next to her.

“Not going to lie, anything’s dangerous. Walking out your door is dangerous. But no one’s currently chasing us and we’re careful and we’re helping people and we’re finally past our personal crap. Mostly.”

“Something tells me that isn’t likely to change completely,” she said, noting his choice to use the word currently.

He laughed, but he didn’t sound grim like he usually did, he sounded happy.

Amy studied him for a minute. She really didn’t know who Michael Guerin was and she wouldn’t be ever likely to now but he was the person who stood between her daughter and disaster and Amy needed to know.

“Will you swear to me she’ll be safe?” Amy asked.

Michael faced her and shook his head.

“No, but I swear I will do everything I can to protect her,” he said seriously. “Remember, remember when you chewed me out over the phone?”

“I do,” she said.

“You told me to be kind to Maria,” Michael said. “That’s what I’m trying to do now.”

Amy looked at him again for a while. He was sincere, at least she thought so. She didn’t know what else to think. This conversation hadn’t exactly assuaged all of her fears, but it was something. Something more than she’d had before she went to sleep. She’d have to take it.

“Well, remember what else I said,” Amy said. “I will hunt you down.”

Michael turned red and looked sheepish.

“Well, uh, I mean…”

“I don’t want to know!” Amy interrupted him. “Just take care of her or the government will be the least of your worries.”

“Yeah, of course,” he said, straightening up.

“She’s happy?” Amy asked again.

“She is,” Michael said more definitively this time.

Amy tried to be glad about that, but she still just missed her daughter.

“Tell her I love her, okay?” Amy said. “And that I’m very upset I never got to say goodbye and she’s grounded for the rest of her life and she better stay safe.”

“I will,” Michael said. Isabel stood up from her seat and gestured to Michael. “I gotta go,” he said. “She’s getting tired.”

“No,” said Amy brokenly, suddenly wishing the dream would never end. “Michael, you’re my least favorite person in the world, but don’t you dare not come back and tell me how she is.”

Michael grinned.

“At least I’m still a person,” he said. “You bet, Mrs. Deluca. Take care.”

He faded away and Amy was alone in the auditorium again.

When she woke up she remembered everything and she couldn’t say she was happy but maybe she was ready to start living again. If Maria was out there somewhere, Amy could pretend she was at college or off building a singing career and she’d be home at Christmas or maybe send an alien telegram via her boyfriend. She thought a lot about Michael again, about all she’d seen in him over the years. He might have been masquerading as a human, but she doesn’t think he’d ever pretended to love her daughter. Amy had to hold on to that fact and the dream was a confirmation that at least she could believe in one thing. Michael Guerin might be an alien, but he loved her daughter and Amy knew he’d be her protector in Amy’s place. She had to trust in that. She’d do her part and live her life, protect her daughter’s secret, and share that pain with the others who’d also lost their children. One day, one day she’d see Maria again, even if it was only a dream.


End file.
